Faculty and Research Interests

A. V. Anilkumar (Research Professor of the Practice of Mechanical Engineering)

Experimental Fluid Dynamics: dynamics of reactive drops, thermocapillary migration of bubbles; experimental gas dynamics: shock-tube techniques; Space-based materials processing: directional solidification, float zones and nanotechnology.

Robert Joel Barnett (Associate Professor of the Practice of Mechanical Engineering)

Welding and welding controls, weld pool thermal and fluid modeling, sensor development, machine-vision-based quality control systems, robotic weld-path programming and robotic welding, alternative fuel engines, technical photography and imaging systems.

Eric Barth (Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering)

Design, modeling, and control of mechatronic systems. Actuator development for autonomous robots. Neural networks, fuzzy logic and applied nonlinear control.

Michael Goldfarb (Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Center for Intelligent Mechatronics)

Design, modeling, and control of electromechanical systems, design and control of conventional scale robot manipulators and micromanipulators, control of telerobotic and telemicrorobotic systems, biomechanics and control of juman movement, applied nonlinear control. Haptic interfaces.

Deyu Li (Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering)

Micro/Nano scale energy and molecular transport phenomena, Nanofabrication techniques, Molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo Simulation, Micro/Nanofluidics.

Dongqing Li (H. Fort Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering)

Microfluidics and Lab-on-a-Chip Devices, Electrokinetic Phenomena, Surface Thermodynamics, Colloidal and Interfacial Phenomena.

Robert W. Pitz (Department Chair, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of Undergraduate Studies)

Laser diagnostics, flame chemistry, turbulent combustion, turbulence-chemistry interactions, pollutant formation, hypersonic propulsion, gas turbine combustion, direct injection gasoline engine and natural gas appliances, oxygen-enriched combustion; laminar and turbulent combustion; Raman scattering, laser-induced fluorescence, free-electron laser diagnostics; molecular-tagging velocimetry.

Carol A. Rubin (Professor of Mechanical Engineering)

Theoretical and applied mechanics, finite element analysis, stress analysis, rolling contract mechanics, vibrations of musical instruments.

Nilanjan Sarkar (Director of Graduate Studies, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Associate Professor of Computer Engineering)

Robotics – design, modeling and control of robotic manipulators and mobile robots; Human-Robot Interaction – affective computing, emotion modeling, control of robotic systems based on emotion sensitivity; Medical Robotics – robotic and virtual reality based intervention of children with autism, robot-assisted stroke rehabilitation, robotic system for breast biopsy; Dynamics and Control – Fault-adaptive control, hybrid control, and nonlinear control.